Only Dreaming
by jamespotterdidntstrut
Summary: Short James/Lily piece where they both struggle with their relationship with the other.


At first James didn't mind them so much, the dreams. Every now and again she would show up in them and for just a few hours, albeit made up ones, they wouldn't be fighting or yelling or competing with one another. It would just be James and Lily and whatever his mind had made up for that night. But that was at first, after a week or so of waking up every morning only to realize that she still hated him and his chances of being with her were still about as good as a flobberworm had, he began to feel depressed.

"What's the matter, Prongs?" Sirius and Remus and Peter would all take turns asking. In the morning, at breakfast, in the middle of Potions. Everywhere. He just couldn't escape the questions that he had no answer to.

He began to avoid sleep, staying up until the wee hours of the morning planning pranks or even doing homework on his bed by wand light. He couldn't keep it up for much longer though, he realized this after a rather embarrassing incident while falling asleep during a particularly boring speech in Transfiguration on the importance of focus when using unspoken incantations. He couldn't let that happen again.

There seemed to be only one solution his slowly unhinging mind could come to: kiss Lily. _Kiss Lily. Kiss Lily. Kiss Lily. _But it wasn't that easy.

Lily liked the dreams no less than he did, the dreams where Potter would show up out of nowhere just to ruin her sleep. _What is he doing here? This is _my_ dream! _But that never seemed to stop him.

She, too, began to avoid sleeping. Not quite as dramatically though. She'd get up an hour earlier, go to bed an hour or so later. "I've just got a lot of studying to do." she would tell anyone who asked about her new sleeping habits. She would never admit that the real reason she couldn't sleep was that she was afraid one day he would show up in those silly dreams of hers and he wouldn't be a total prat. That she would actually enjoy his company, if only in a dream.

October 7th was not a significant day for any reason, or at least it didn't seem to be. Lily woke up an hour earlier than all of her roommates just like she had for the past seven days, telling herself that this was a good thing. She wouldn't have to fight for the shower or listen to her roommates morning complaints. James rolled out of bed without having slept a wink. He hopped in a freezing shower in the hopes that it would wake him up, but it did very little other than make him miserable and cold.

Then they sat there on their respective beds, both in different rooms, and looked out different windows into the same sunrise and ran their hands through their equally messy hair.

"Enough," James muttered to himself, slumping over and resting his face into his hands. "I've got to do something about this. I can't stay up anymore."

"Lily, you've got to get some sleep." she told herself quietly as her other roommates slept on. "Tonight, no exceptions. There has got to be a potion for something like this." And then it was decided, she would go down to the library and figure out a remedy for this before classes started. She got up off of her bed and walked down the stairs to the common room just as the door was opening to the boys dormitories.

"Evans," she heard him call down the stairs as he took them two at a time. "you're up early."

She studied his face before answering, looking at the bags under his eyes that made them look bruised and the way his hands were shaking like he was running on what little adrenaline his body could cook up. "And it looks like you've been up late." she commented and tried to turn around, but he was right there with her, easily matching her strides towards the portrait hole.

"Yeah, weird dreams."

"Really?" she asked, surprise flooding her words. "I mean… I've been having them too. I was just going down to the library to look up a cure or something."

"Haven't been dreaming about me, have you, Evans?" he would have asked if he wasn't so tried. Instead he nodded quietly and shoved his hands into his pockets. "Mind if I come with you? I've got some time to kill."

"Alright." she said, looking him over once more and trying not to smile as she saw his eyes light up just the faintest bit.

So maybe he wasn't going to get his kiss, at least not yet, but perhaps he didn't need it. Maybe all they needed was to realize that it didn't have to be all yelling and arguing all the time. Maybe they had already known that subconsciously. And maybe, just maybe, all they really needed was to spend some real time together before they would start to realize it for themselves, just how perfect they were for one another.


End file.
